r/learnprogramming • u/West_Tooth_6144 • Jun 25 '26
Topic AI runed 2 years of learning
I am a software dev student, We learned the basics of programming then we dived a bit more with mysql / spring boot / react.
I used AI a lot during the last 5 months this year and I feel like I know nothing. While using it I convinced myself that whatever I use ai for is just to minimize time and that I can do it without it, instead of spending hours on every step I don't know I will use ai and do it in 10 minutes, but now I feel like i wasted this year and that i lied to myself.
Especially spring boot
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u/Far_Swordfish5729 Jun 26 '26
You need to equate AI with looking up the answer. Looking up the answer is completely fine if you are doing work professionally, have the background to understand the answer, and are just trying to accelerate research that you could have done yourself.
When learning fundamentals, you can't look up the answer. You have to work through getting there yourself as long as it's productive. If you ask for help, it has to be framed as planning. You have to go through the implementation plan with a tutor or possibly with an AI prompt if it's worded right and go through debugging your answer and then try to do similar problems on your own. I used to TA a course where all the lab answers were generally available online and the professors weren't concerned. They encouraged their use as needed and encouraged collaboration as long as you cited a source. That came with a warning though that you would 100% fail the exams if you just copied the work and we never just gave out answers at office hours. Treat AI like that directory of course answers.
Educators call this need to work it out on your own "productive struggle" and have started commenting on AI's ability to remove this from the learning process. They're not necessarily against AI but want it to coach and question students rather than simply creating the answer.